Editing Synchronization gear (section)

==== Ross and other "miscellaneous" gears ====
The Ross gear was an interim, field-built gear designed in 1916 specifically to replace the unsuitable Vickers-Challenger gears in the 1½ Strutters of the [[No. 70 Squadron RAF|RFC's No.70 Squadron]].<ref group="Note">It is likely that the Scarff-Dibovski gear – being Navy issue, would not have been readily available for this purpose.</ref> Officially it was designed by Captain Ross of No.70, although it has been suggested that a flight-sergeant working under Captain Ross was largely responsible. The gear was apparently used only on 1½ Strutters, but [[No. 45 Squadron RAF|No. 45]] squadron used at least some examples of the gear, as well as No. 70. It was replaced by the Sopwith-Kauper gear when that gear became available.<ref name=Woodman12>Woodman 1989, p. 192.</ref>

[[Norman Macmillan (RAF officer)|Norman Macmillan]], writing some years after the event, claimed that the Ross gear had a very slow rate of fire, but that it left the original trigger intact, so that it was possible "in a really tight corner" to "fire the gun direct without the gear, and get the normal rate of fire of the ground gun". Macmillan claimed that propellers with up to twenty hits nonetheless got their aircraft home.<ref name=Bruce1>Bruce 1966, p. 7.</ref> Some aspects of this information are hard to reconcile with the way a synchronized gun actually worked, and may well be a matter of Macmillan's memory playing tricks.<ref name=Woodman12/>

Another "field made" synchronizer was the ARSIAD: produced by the ''Aeroplane Repair Section of the No.1 Aircraft Depot'' in 1916. Little specific seems to be known about it; although it may have been fitted to some early R.E.8s for which no Vickers-Challenger gears could be found.<ref name=Woodman12/>

[[Airco]] and [[Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft|Armstrong Whitworth]] both designed their own gears specifically for their own aircraft. Standardisation on the [[hydraulic]] C.C. gear (described below) occurred before either had been produced in numbers.<ref name=Woodman13>Woodman 1989, pp. 192–193.</ref> Only [[Sopwith Aviation Company|Sopwith]]s' gear (next section) was to go into production.